2014 Annual Report

Annual Report

March 1, 2014 - February 28,
2015

In the community of Santa Elena Veinte de Octubre SEPA
provided 25 scholarships, which will make it possible for boys and girls to
continue their education beyond 6th grade. Seventeen students ( eleven boys and 6 girls) will be
attending middle school in 2015 and eight students (seven boys and one girl)
will be attending high school. The
cost was $10,350. The middle
school students receive $350 for each student and the high school students
receive $550. Our goal for
2016 is to increase the number of female students who are continuing their
education. One strategy for
accomplishing this goal will be to determine the number of females who could
have attended either middle school or high school, but choose not to attend in
2015 and their reasons for not attending.
Once we have this number we will set aside that number of scholarships
to be used exclusively by females.
This information will be communicated to the governance structure in the
community along with the information that the people in Oberlin who support
SEPA’S Scholarship Program strongly believe that it is very important for both
boys and girls to receive an education. In addition to the scholarships SEPA provided $4,792 in
supplemental salaries to the director of the elementary school in Santa Elena (Victoriano Choc
Cu) and his teaching partner (Virginia Yat Sambrano).

We are delighted to report that we recently received an official
request from Dionicio Choc Cu to attend extension classes the University of San
Carlos in Cantabal.The request,
which SEPA funded was for $535.This amount will allow Dionicio to attend the University for one year.He is currently teaching in an
elementary school and attending the University one day a week (Saturdays).

In Copal AA SEPA contributed $8,000, approximately a third
of the total budget, to fund the operation of the middle school, including
salaries for the following: 3 teachers, a director, an accountant, and various
administrative costs.We also
contributed $1,000 to the high school scholarship fund.

For fiscal year 2015/2016 Copal AA has requested $18,000
from SEPA.This amount represents
75% of the total budget. The increase in Copal AA ‘s request is a result
ofhaving lost other sources of
funding. This year Copal AA will
add two grades at the high school level.Their ultimate goal is to be in a position to offer three years of
middle school and three years of high school.

In January of 2015 SEPA sponsored an Oberlin College
Delegation of eleven students to visit Santa Elena for ten days and Copal AA
for five days.The student leader
was Clara Lincoln, a second year student from Washington, D.C. and the group
was accompanied by Lynne Purvis, a former human rights monitor with NISGUA and
Erik Woodward a current employee of NISGUA.Both Erik and Lynne were formerly sponsored by SEPA as human
rights monitors in Guatemala. The student delegation studied either Spanish or
Q’eqchi’ with local teachers and they taught English to elementary age students
in Santa Elena.In Copal AA the
students entered into a long discussion with the village council about the
Guatemalan Government’s desire to build a mega hydroelectric dam just upriver
from the community of Copal AA.Copal AA and the surrounding countryside are very opposed to the
building of this dam.The dam
would flood thousands of acres of farmland and forests above the dam while
greatly reducing the flow of water below the dam thereby eliminating the river
as a source of food and transportation.Moreover the dam would not provide electricity for the local
communities.The dam is a major concern
of Copal AA and all of the people of this region.

Finally, We are looking forward to sponsoring Sarah Johnson,
a gradating senior at Oberlin College, as a NISGUA human rights monitor, who
will begin her service in Guatemala this September.Her initial commitment will be for six months.While Sarah is in Guatemala SEPA will
provide her with a monthly stipend of $530 per month along with a payment of
$200 per month for dues to NISGUA.Sarah was a member of the 2014 “Winter Term” delegation to Guatemala.